#One of my stories has a whole section where the main characters are trapped in a deadly cold environment for a week and have to use magic

[icewindandboringhorror]

sneeping with his legs up over his head for some reason... weird boye

[yzy-dragon]

I absolutely ADORED S2E9 "Three Stories" of Link Click and was a bit surprised to see the discontent here on Tumblr, and I totally understand the reasons why people didn't like it, especially in the context of the pacing of the rest of S2 (which I also have some opinions on but I won't talk about that here), but I also felt the need to just get my heart out why I love it so much. A bit of background, I'm Chinese American but have lived in and visited China numerous times.

Music and theater. As a western classical musician and an amateur Chinese opera singer enthusiast (I saw someone else post about the possible inspo this episode got from Chinese opera), I VIBED with the artistic direction of this episode SO much. The three-part structure was almost like a sonata/symphony (and remember that one scene where Qian Jin was air-conducting in a previous episode!!) or scene changes in a Chinese opera. Nothing needs to be said about the animation style that hasn't been said already, but I like how scenes from the three individual "stories" were interwoven and reused like leitmotifs. Especially that crazy, tortured laughter. Idk if any of the parallels were intentional on the part of the director, but it's what I got from it due to my personal experiences. I know that's a highly subjective takeaway though, which brings me to my next point....

Qian Jin's "tragic" backstory. I know a lot of people were upset that the extent of Qian Jin's tragic backstory was "oh his wife cheated on him", but I think the "basicness" of his struggles was the whole point (by the way, this segment displayed various attitudes towards work, family, marriage, individual pride, and life in mainland China so subtly but so well!). I also don't think sympathy was the main thing we were supposed to feel for him, although of course there is some. The whole "tragicomedy" aspect of Qian Jin's story is that it's not some horrible, terrible, rare thing that happened to him, but a common problem faced by so many hardworking but busy married men trying to provide for their families: infidelity. But Qian Jin sees himself as the main character of an elaborate play that rivals the great dramatic classics (which, funnily enough, often depicted very DRAMATIZED versions of a rather basic series of events). And his viewpoint is validated when....

Qian Jin meets the twins. That segment is still largely from Qian Jin's perspective, because we still don't really know how LTC and LTX even feel about him. But for Qian Jin, it's a stroke of fate and fortune that could only possibly happen in theater. He's very far removed from reality at this point. Reality is that a cop whose job it is to investigate violent crime comes across two kids who are the victims of a violent crime. Again, nothing particularly special or even coincidential. It's comical like that.

The fairy tale section.  Unlike the first two, I think this segment is from Xixi’s perspective, which not only justifies the cartoony artstyle but also makes it heartbreaking, due to her childlike innocence.  Like Qian Jin, she also perceives her reality as something it’s not, but unlike him, she doesn’t have delusions of grandeur of being a tragic protagonist.  It’s just a little fox trying to survive in a forest full of predators and hunters.  

All that tortured laughter. I’ve actually noticed in a lot of Chinese media that they like to use laughter as a way of signifying a person’s complete mental breakdown due to the tragedies they’ve suffered.  It’s a very internal thing that has people on the outside going, “WTF?”  In this episode we have a lot of characters crazily laughing together at the same time and it seems like they’re relating to each other, but in reality they’re all trapped in their own nightmarish hells and motivated by selfish purposes. 

Back to the topic of Qian Jin, even though he (innaccurately) may see himself as the hero of his own story, it's not enough for him. He wants to use Cheng Xiaoshi to change the past. He wants to become the director of the play.

I know a lot of people were disappointed this episode didn't advance the plot, especially in regard to Cheng Xioashi and Lu Guang's storylines, but I was actually prepared for a backstory episode and couldn't have been more satisfied. Again, I have other opinions on the rest of S2 but at least standalone, I think this episode was nearly perfect. And I really wasn't expecting this, but it's really elevated Qian Jin to one of my top characters.

[sukinapan]

honestly would be pretty interested in hearing about all of them, if thats alright

it's no problem o( ❛ᴗ❛ )o i like talking about this

for context, apart from making personal art i'm also an artist and character designer at Smarto Club, so I don't know if these count as OCs but i have posted art of them here: Haco from >Bubblegum Galaxy and Teacup from >Teacup.

you can check the steam pages on those games for more info if u like. i love all my characters but i don't usually make personal art of these two since i already do it as my job.

my newest Smarto Club character is a bit different since she's more in the style of what i'm doing personally so i want to make more art of her soon. her name is Abigail:

she's a kid who likes reading about bugs and catching them but she never hurts them : ) this is a short game in early development but it's about catching creatures called angels. it's got horrorish vibes but i don't think the end result will be full-out horror, since it's also kinda silly...

then there's Peklo, it's a game for which i created the whole concept and story but the plan is to develop it as a studio at Smarto Club. i wrote more context for it on this post, but for the characters, they're my favorites to make art about at the moment. the main ones are Kiku (the cat) and Mi (the bunny):

i recently created these human forms of them for fun but i'm not sure whether i'll establish them as canon or not... they're trapped in limbo/hell so there's space for them to have a past human form. they don't remember their lives but Kiku feels a deep sense of regret about things unkown to her and wants to break out of Peklo. Mi feels trapped in an eternal sadness, she longs to see the ocean, she can always hear it but has never been able to reach it.

the antagonist in Peklo is a frog entity called Guppy but i haven't really shown him outside of his froggy logo

i also have OCs from my smaller games. there's Hlina that i created specifically for >this game that was commissioned to me for a zine. i don't have any plans to use her again for now but i might make more art of her in the future for fun. she's part of a strange dream realm and is hostile to the player:

there's iro from the >game with the same name who's my oldest game OC. i created that bitsy game for her story but she existed previously in my art degree final project, it was a version of the same story but just a section of it. it's a dream of mine to create a full-fledged 3D game for her some day.

she's a bit of a defective space exploration robot, sent to explore planetoid Iridium-3 in search of human contact. it's set in a future where humanity has dispersed among the whole galaxy so lots of groups have lost contact with each other.

my latest game OC is Michtat, a wizard cat that i created just for this silly zine.

lasty, there’s the characters from my comic that I’m working on, called The most distant planet. the main characters are Victor and Mitya, two 9 year olds whose families end up living together.

i'd say these are the dearest characters to me of all. i don't post as much of them because they're mostly in the shape of comic pages and it doesn't spark as much interest as my games. i love drawing them though.

they’re both little weirdos who isolate themselves and don’t fit in much with other children, so the friendship they develop is very special to them. they have almost opposite personalities where Victor (darker hair) is very shy and dorky but also very sweet to everyone, while Mitya mostly gives 0 fucks about what anyone thinks or says, he blurts out whatever he’s thinking and just wants to run around wild.

the story is mostly slice of life-ish but there’s also a science fiction element ^-^ Victor is obsessed with things like ghosts, aliens, etc but Mitya thinks it’s all just dumb tales.

another important character is Alyosha, Mitya’s 17-18yo brother. he doesn’t know how to talk or relate to his little brother and is kinda weirded out by him. they where very close when they were younger, but when Mitya was 2 he had an accident that Alyosha feels guilty about, and has been somehow different ever since.

he still worries about his little brother and how isolated he is, though. at the beginning of the story the two of them live alone with their grandma who does love them but has kind of a cold and distant personality. 

Alyosha was the type of kid to be considered “gifted” but now feels completely burnt out and had to repeat a grade at school. he felt so humiliated by this he eventually stopped going entirely, so he now works part time and just studies at home. he cut contact with his old classmates but he still has 2 best friends from the last few months he spent at school in the grade below, Manon and Min Na. they’re the kind of friends who just show up unannounced at his house and job, and are very involved with his family’s life.

i’ve also included Min Jie in some art, she’s Min Na’s younger cousin and comes into the story later:

i should have like character sheets and stuff for all of these OCs but i’m the kind to just jump head first into drawing/modeling lol, that's why i included all these finished illustrations.

i really wanna publish this comic, i’ve been working on it for a long time and i’m currently waiting for the results of a public funding application here in my country to decide what i'll do next.

hope this could be of interest (^人^) thanks for the ask!

[ironwoodprotectionsquad]

Rwby ost was always funny af because most of the time songs do a better job at developing characters than the show itself.

And of course add the weird gap between the songs that play and the scene they are inserted into.

Like "Be strong and hit stuff" plays during Ironwood vs Everyone for... some reason. "Chatterbox" (a song about Neo and Curuous Cat internally fighting) plays during Jabberwalkers vs WBY for... some reason. And let's not forget "Red like roses 2" playing during RWBY and JNPR vs Nevermore.

Like... at this point I'm not surprised "Guide my way" has nothing to do with vol9 plot nor Rubys arc in the said vol🤷‍♀️

The RW/BY soundtrack certainly makes....choices. Some songs are good across all 9 soundtracks and others are....their. Overall though I tend to not like it when the songs have lyrics during the battles as for me they can distract from the battle itself with wanting to try and listen to the lyrics because as you said, so often the songs do more of the heavy lifting for characterizing the characters and actually giving us insight into their thoughts and feelings.

But on the other hand so often the songs and their placement makes no sense to what is happening thematically. Unfortunately Guide My Way falls into this trap which is unfortunately because we've been so long due for a song that really focuses on Ruby and Guide My Way...falls kind of flat. (TW suicide and attempted suicide discussions below)

I remember when we first heard the notes from Red like Roses I got goosebumps I was so excited and I loved it and it had my hyped for the whole song...but I've realized I don't like anything but that little instrumental section before the lyrics "Red like roses fills my dreams" that is the best part of the song....and its just Red like Roses. But more importantly the lyrics....don't make sense.

I'm begging, can you Guide my way out Of this place?

This song is what plays when Ruby is supposed to be "finding herself" and regaining her confidence in herself. It doesn't make sense for the lyrics to be begging for guidance. If the volume ended with Ruby still in an emotionally shaky place sure the lyrics could work.

Ruby does chose herself realizing her loved ones would miss her and love her because she is her despite her flaws. However she still feels guilty and lost and clearly needs time to heal. The lyrics then have a duel meaning of seeking both guidance in the physical sense and the emotional sense. However that's not what the show went with so the lyrics go against everything the show is claiming is supposed to be Ruby's arc.

Will I ever be (complete)? When will I become all of me?

Again confusing because this is supposed to be Ruby's finding herself and choosing herself moment....why is she asking if she will ever be complete? As I've said it makes no sense for Ruby to in this moment be having these thoughts, the big thing is she should be feel confident in herself and her abilities again and the show has no indication that Ruby is feeling anything but self assured and confident so the song implying otherwise is odd to me.

Your memory ever-lasting at war with my foolish pride What is left?

The foolish pride part is....admittedly kind of frustrating. All last volume the girls all insisted that they where doing the right thing and never really questioned the morality of their actions. The other make sure to tell Ruby when she doubts their actions that that is just thinking like the super duper evil Ironwood and we can't have that. The show has repeatedly slapped us in the face with the fact that Ruby is totes super perfect and is elevating her to this honestly creepy god like status.

This line teases a story line so many people have wanted to see of Ruby actually acknowledging her faults and failures and growing and improving as a person. Unfortunately this does not happen. The mains continue to act as if they can do no wrong and refuse to sit down and reflect on their actions.

I know it's you and I, when I look inside I'll be who you were and I'll be even more

Again, this is supposed to be about Ruby "choosing herself" why is this song that should be about the moment she did in fact choose herself declaring that Ruby will be who her mother was and given that one of the major things that broke her was this expectation that she would solve everything and was perfect and always happy all the time, having her declare she'll be even more feels....tone deaf is the best word I can think for it.

Cr/wby pretended to write this story about a girl carrying the weight of the world and crumbling under the pressure of it all. But then this song is having her declare after breaking that she would be "even more". Pretending that a person who broke under the pressure would turn around and enforce the pedestal they where put on is absolutely insane to me. Just the callousness of it all especially with how Ruby's break was handled.

Cr/wby had Ruby try to end her life. They had her drink tea that she thought would kill her with Neo telling her the world would be better off without her. Neo broke her by reminding her of her faults and failures and made her think the world would be better off without her. Instead of recognizing this pedestal she was being put on was hurting her, they instead reinforced said pedestal and made sure she know how worthy she was of the pedestal putting her realistically in the exact same situation as she was in before.

I am the reflection of who prevails I'm what inspired the fairytale

As stated above, this is just once again putting Ruby further up on a pedestal and giving her this honestly creepy god like status in how she's being revered and inspiring fairytales. It doesn't make any sense to me and it's frustrating how careless CR/WBY has been with this entire arc.

(I can guide me, I can guide my way out) Guide my way out Of this place

"I can guide me" feels almost like an afterthought that was thrown in at the end to me at least. Why is this line a background line if its supposed to be the moment Ruby fully realizes she is enough? Why not have I can guide my way out be the final line of the song? If the song is supposed to be Ruby's entire emotional journey throughout the volume it doesn't convey well at all given how this feels like such an afterthought. If its supposed to be all about how Ruby has found herself it also falls extremely flat.

Sorry to go on a massive tangent their but I had thoughts lolz.

[toxinfrog]

Some thoughts on the secret bosses

I have some thoughts and theories/incoherent ramblings about Deltarune that have been rattling around in my head all day, and I've decided to share them, if only because I have to talk to somebody about them. Also, I've come up to this section because WOW this post is getting long, and I haven't even gotten to my main point yet, so, uh, fair warning: It's a long one.

So, first of all, Spamton and Kris are quite similar characters, and sort of "rhyme." I want to use the word "Foil", but I don't think that's quite right, so for now, I'm going to go with saying that the characters Rhyme. Spamton is a puppet under the control of another being, and so is Kris. This is quite well-trodden ground, so I don't want to linger here much longer than I have to, but I'm starting with this because it's where my train of thought began.

I then remembered how I leaned towards the idea that the thrown-away flowers could be the secret boss for Deltarune Chapter 3, as they would have some severe narrative importance for Kris as a discarded relic of their divorced father. Then, the thought occurred to me that I have no reason to assume that all of the secret bosses are going to be narratively significant to Kris, aside from the motif of seeking or having freedom: They may be the main character, but there's already counter evidence to this idea, and that evidence is Jevil.

As far as I can tell, Jevil does not have a lot to do with Kris. He has quite a few things in common with Spamton (Nihilism, thrown-away thing, ect.), but Jevil does not rhyme with Kris. That being said, you know who Jevil kind of does rhyme with? The Player. For starters, both Jevil and The Player see the world as a game and make the people of the world its participants. Sure, Jevil may have decided to go around killing people and we as players didn't (Or rather, couldn't in chapter 1, with the most one could do being frightening enemies away), but we both played a game with the people of this world, whether that was reducing their HP to zero or ACTing until they were unwilling to fight back. There's also something to be said about the perspective of imprisonment: Much like how Jevil saw those outside his cell as imprisoned despite the protests of the fun gang, we see the characters as trapped inside a computer screen, or a television, or a Nintendo Switch, or whatever else you're playing on that I'm not thinking of right now. Their world is very much limited to just the confines of hometown in our eyes: They probably believe that there's a whole world out there, but to us, it sure looks like a prison. Another thing, and one that I only just now thought of, is that Kris is known to imprison the player's soul, much like Jevil was imprisoned by the other darkners. One final note, and this one's a bit of a reach, but I did warn you about the incoherent rambling: Both Jevil and the player live in a spinning world.

One more angle that I just now thought of is the angle of Spamton embodying Kris's fears and the idea of Jevil embodying the player's fears. Kris is, of course, afraid that they can't live without being under the control of their puppetmaster, and Spamton embodies this fear by dropping to the ground the moment their strings are cut, and only coming to life again after being strung back up, implying that Kris is screwed if they manage to get what they want. That being said, what does the player fear that Jevil represents? Well, if you ask me, my greatest fear when trying to get into an RPG is that I'm not going to be able to get invested in the story and characters, and Jevil definitely seems uninvested in the well-being of the darkners: He's more interested in playing the game than he is in the people within it. In fact, his treatment of characters in the story as obstacles to be overcome and little else is what got him locked up in the first place. Jevil may very well be the living embodiment of becoming so disinterested in a story that you just start mashing A until you get to the fun gameplay, and for an RPG player, there's not a whole lot worse.

Something that comes to mind is the fact that the player is treated like a character in the story: Most main characters in video games don't interact with the player playing them, but Kris frequently puts the character in Time-Out to go do their own thing without the player's intervention. With that in mind, as well as the fact that both Kris and the Player rhyme with secret bosses, it may very well be possible that there could be a pattern of secret bosses rhyming with different major characters in the story. This could mean that instead of every secret boss connecting back to Kris, there's a secret boss meant to connect to Kris, the player, Susie, Ralsei, Noelle and whatever other major players come up in later chapters.

The main reason I think I assumed secret bosses were always Kris adjacent was because of the freedom motif throughout them, but who's to say that freedom isn't just a motif for the whole cast? For example, Noelle certainly seems pretty constrained on freedom between not being able to do anything about her ill father or missing sister and having a very strict mother. Continuing down the list, Susie is probably either homeless or neglected, and probably feels pretty powerless to change that, not to mention her pushing the whole "Your Choices don't Matter" Idea onto Kris when half of her bullying seems to be projection. Ralsei seems to be least in need of freedom at first, but considering how closely he holds the prophecy, it seems that a certain level of predetermination is core to his worldview. As for the player, well, you may get all sorts of choices, but the steam page DID say there was only one ending, and yeah, there was a question mark at the end, but it is definitely put into your head early that this game is not as free as Undertale.

So anyways, if the secret bosses are all related to characters, then maybe we can use the relations between characters and compare them to the relations between secret bosses and see if there's anything interesting there. Well, Kris is probably not very fond of the player: I mean, we ARE the ones controlling them, and I definitely feel some malice in the way they chuck our soul around. So, what are Spamton's opinions on Jevil? Well, he certainly doesn't seem fond of "THAT DAMN [Clown around town]" at all, honestly. One thing in particular he cites that stands out to me is his need to bust his ass working while Jevil only cares about games: This sounds a lot to me like how Kris has to do all of the physical labor that would be expected of such a grand adventure while we simply get to experience it as a game. I'll admit that that part is a reach, but I do think that the mirrored disdain is worth something, at least. I would love to examine the other side of this relationship in detail, but Jevil barely talks about the people he's interacted with, and never even mentions Spamton (which all certainly fits with my interpretation of Jevil, but I digress), so that's going to be difficult.

I wonder if Spamton mentions any other secret bosses? Well, the only two characters he mentions that we haven't met yet are Tenna and Mike, and by all accounts, Tenna is almost certainly the TV that is going to be the main antagonist of chapter 3, so that just leaves Mike. I don't know if Mike is going to be a secret boss or have some other significance. That being said, let's suppose that he is to be a secret boss, and try and extrapolate from there. What does Spamton think of Mike, and what do we know about the guy? Well, Spamton is fairly fond of Mike, and based on the warning he gives us regarding not believing "[Anything you see on TV]", it seems that Tenna is spreading negative rumors about Mike, and, considering this Tenna character is the ruler of a dark world in the same league as Queen or the King of Spades, it wouldn't be surprising if these rumors stuck. You know who Kris is quite fond of and finds themselves swarming with negative rumors? Susie. It seems like you can't talk about Susie with anyone without the rumors about her behavior coming up: Even Noelle seems shocked by the idea that Susie is a nice person, and Noelle is probably the most Pro-Susie biased person in existence. I guess what I'm trying to say is I think there's a possibility that Susie and Mike are going to rhyme in the same way that Kris and Spamton do.

At any rate, seeing some secret bosses get into other character's heads the same way that Spamton did with Kris in that way that only said character truly understands is a narratively fascinating topic, and I hope the idea gets explored.

Okay, I think that's everything.

[redgoldsparks]

September Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Full reviews below the cut.

The Breakaways by Cathy G Johnson

Faith is a quiet fifth grader, prone to daydreaming and doodling. She is not very sporty, but she is talked into joining the middle-school girl's soccer team and falls into a web of friendships, grudges, crushes, and aspiring punk musicians. The book weaves together scenes of most of the team member's various struggles and experiments as they all try to get through life in the tumultuous junior high years. I wished the story had focused on a slightly smaller cast, as I felt like I only only got a little slip of story about each player, but what I did get I liked.

A Lady for Duke by Alexis Hall read by Kay Eluvian

Viola Caroll fought as a soldier in Waterloo; when she was left for dead on a battlefield, but nursed back to health by farmers, she decided to renounce her old life as a viscount and live as her true self, a woman. At the start of the story, only her younger bother and sister-in-law know the story of Viola's past. But a cry for help brings her back in contact with the Duke of Gracewood, her childhood best friend, bosom companion, and fellow Waterloo survivor. Viola had decided the best thing she could do was cut off her old friend and never reveal to him that she lived. But she finds him haunted by fears, addictions, and PTSD; left with a permanent limp and a terrible grief, he is barely surviving. She commits to caring for him temporarily, but when he begins to fall in love with her, Viola feels trapped between her own feelings and her fear of telling him the truth of their past. This historical romance is almost completely free of homophobia and transphobia; what ends up separating the characters for much of the story is not their genders or sexualities but their social class. The cast of the book is rounded out with a delightful set of quirky family members, from Gracewood's dreamy oddball of a teen sister to Viola's Mrs Bennett-like sister-in-law. I read so little romance, I don't even have a virtual shelf for it. I liked this one, but also thought it was at least 50 pages too long, and wished the pace had moved more quickly through some sections. The tone switched from humor to melancholy very abruptly sometimes mid-scene, and the final confrontation with the main villain was a bit ridiculous, but ultimately I did enjoy the book.

Crier's War by Nina Varela

Crier is an Automae, an AI being made by human creators at the order of her father, the Automae king of most of Zulla. She is beautiful, smart, stronger than a human, and close to invulnerable, but she is also very naïve and has seen little of the world. Ayla is a human girl who's whole family was killed by Automae; she is in touch with many rebels in the oppressed human population, but she is more interested in revenge than rebellion. She wants to kill Crier and make her father suffer as Ayla has suffered. But Ayla isn't prepared for the warm sympathy and understanding Crier will offer her- or the spark of attraction between them. This is a very fast read, and if you are looking for a quick, easy queer YA to kick you out of a reading slump this might hit the spot. Don't, however, spend too much time thinking about the plot or the worldbuilding because both are extremely sloppy and full of holes. There are a lot of first-book weaknesses here from flat character introductions to an overuse of flashbacks. But I do still want to know how the story ends and will probably read the second book of the duology to satisfy my curiosity!

Siren Queen by Nghi Vo

I think this is my favorite Nghi Vo novel yet, which is saying a lot, because I loved all of the others as well! Set in pre-Code Hollywood, the Chinese-American protagonist falls in love with movies after a single black and white picture at a nickel theater in Hungarian Hill, Los Angeles, where she lives over her family's laundry. She stumbles into a movie set and ends up getting a single-line uncredited role by being in the right place at the right time. This only feeds her desire for stardom- which is literal in this story, where most Hollywood studios feed on magic, deals with devils, equinox sacrifices of innocents, and actors can ascent to the sky if they glow bright enough on the screen. This world is woven thorough with miracles and dangers, some which hunt Hollywood hopefuls with teeth and others with predatory contracts. Our main character looses her name but gains entry to the movie world, were she falls into an affair with another actress in the shadows of greats. I loved how deeply queer and Asian-American this story was; our lead finds solidarity and friendship with the few other closeted queer and POC actors on the studio lots who often have to hid their differences but still manage to find each other and hold each other up.

A Mirror Mended by Alix E Harrow read by Amy Landon

I accidentally read this book before its prequel because I didn't notice in the Libby app that it was part of a series! Oh well, it stood alone well enough. In the first book, the main character, Zinnia, discovered an ability to slip out of our real world (where she has a genetic condition which will probably kill her by her mid-twenties) into the alternate universes of fairytales. She has made a business of rescuing princesses from their own stories and helping them find truer happy endings. But when she is pulled through a mirror not by the needs of a protagonist but under the power of a wicked queen, Zinnia has to face some harsh realities. The evil queen claims she wants to leave her tale and live- which is exactly what Zinnia is doing, and it seems to be weakening the walls between universes. Also, Zinnia has been avoiding calling home for months, unwilling to face a conversation with her best friend and family about her health. Then she lands in the darkest and bloodiest story she's experienced yet- only to find she has allies in unexpected places. Very queer, very meta. I often avoid fairytale retellings but this one brought some nice originality to the genre.

The Emperor's Soul by Brandon Sanderson read by Angela Lin

I have never read any Sanderson, but this novella was recommended to me as a good stand-alone. It opens with magical forger, Shai, in prison in the bowels of the imperial palace. She was captured in the act of stealing and replacing several very valuable palace objects with magical replicas. Shai expects to face execution for her acts, but instead is offered a secret, dangerous, challenging task: to magically replicate the soul of the emperor who barely survived an assassination attempt. I liked the clever way magic worked in this world, but wasn't wowed by the prose or the larger political world of this story, so I am unlikely to pick up a full length Sanderson, especially given that they are SO LONG. But if anyone else wants to dip their toes into his world, I think this story is worth a try.

A Spindle Shattered by Alix E Harrow read by Amy Landon

After accidentally listening to the second book in this series, I went back for the first one. The story opens with Zinnia's 21st birthday, which she expects might be her last. She has a very rare chronic condition which has proven fatal to everyone who has it by their early 2os. Zinnia has grown up knowing her life will be shorter than most, and partly because of that fell hard for the fairytale of Sleeping Beauty- a story of a woman who fell into a death-life sleep but woke up to a second chance. When Zinnia's best friend throws her a Sleeping Beauty themed birthday party, Zinnia jokingly pricks her finger on the spindle... only to be sucked directly into a fairytale, in time to stop another young woman from pricking her finger on a spindle as well. Zinnia has no idea what's going on, but luckily she has a degree in folklore and also her cell phone still has service, so she's able to text her best friend at home. This premise could have come off as so hokey and silly, but Harrow gives it an unexpected emotional weight, and a queer happily every after at the end. I can see why it was Hugo nominated! I liked it a lot, and plan to read more from this author.

Thieves by Lucie Bryon

I love Lucie Bryon's art and I've been anticipating this book for years. Set in France, Ella is a high school senior with a snarky no-nonsense best friend and a crush on a somewhat mysterious fellow senior, Madeline. Ella only gets a chance to really talk to her crush at a party, but then she drinks to much and wakes up some how at home surrounded by a pile of stolen possessions. When Madeline shows up to check on Ella, and comments offhand that some of her stuff was stolen last night from her room, Ella realizes that she has accidentally drunkenly burgled the girl she most wants to kiss. What follows is a hilarious kind of re-verse heist in Ella (and also Madeline) attempt to return items to their former owners. Along the way they also have to figure out their feelings for each other, and how to communicate, and forgive each other's inevitable fuckups. A queer coming of age story after my own heart.

Wash Day Diaries by Jamila Rowser and Robyn Smith

I had the pleasure of buying this book from one of the authors at SPX! A sweet story of the intertwined lives of four Black women, best friends, each navigating life, love, careers, hard conversations with family, and supporting each other through it all. Each chapter is focused around one character on wash day, and the theme of hair weaves through the whole book beautifully.

SpyxFamily vol 1 by Taksuya Endo

I've been hearing a lot about this manga, so I decided to give the series a try! In a fictional Europe, a spy named Twilight is tasked with infiltrating a very high end private elementary school. But to do so, he must acquire a fake wife and child to pose as a family man. The child he ends up adopting from an orphanage is physic, and the woman who ends up agreeing to his fake marriage ruse for her own reasons is an assassin. None of them tell each other their big secrets, but they are all so weird they don't really notice how weird the other two are. The set up is SO SILLY, but I am curious enough to try a few more volumes to see how it plays out. The art is fun!

Witch Hat Atelier vol 9 by Kamome Shirahama

Art-wise, this is one of my favorite manga series of all time. I also adore the main cast of little witch students and their teachers. However, the series has introduced so many side characters at this point that I'm having a hard time remembering who they all are and having any emotional investment in them from volume to volume. I wish the would stick a bit more closely to Coco and her education, because all of the fantasy politics might lose me.

Threshold by Anke Gladnic

This comic, loosely exploring identity, gender, and transition, moves from dreamy meditation to nightmare and back again. Beautifully drawn in soft greys and smoky blacks, it's more of a stream of consciousness than a story per say, but it leaves powerful lingering feelings of self-acceptance despite doubts and struggles.

Faster by Jesse Lonergan

Beautifully drawn, creatively laid out, and impeccably paced. This short comic follows a set of racers in an intense high-speed car race on a dangerous track. There are rivalries and friendships among the racers, some of whom are confident, some of whom just want to make it out of the race alive.

Die Horny by Rebecca Mock

Rebecca Mock described this comic as a love letter to horny 90s anime, and that influence very clearly shows! In a post-monster-based-apocalypse world, one human man, Iggy, and his gigantic monster queen wife, Wortizabella, just want to have a romantic honeymoon in the wastelands. But their trip is interrupted by a call for help from a boy who escaped a mining camp run by another monster. Iggy and Wortizabella investigate to find a human girl with superpowers being held captive for her ability to sense quartz crystals, which monsters consume for energy. To infiltrate the operation, Wortizabella pulls on her history as the more dangerous and violent monster warrior who has ever lived, and Iggy dons a leather bondage hood and begs to be stepped on. The line art is loose and full of lively energy, and the character designs are powerful and silly by turns. It's a delight to see such a talented cartoonist leaning fully into self-indulgence.

Nona The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Oh my gosh, what even to say about this book!! No spoilers, but if you enjoyed Gideon, then struggled with Harrow, I think it's very worth it to read Nona. It's told chronologically (like Gideon, unlike Harrow) and instead of being clouded with the unbearable grief and denial Harrow feels for her own actions and situation, this book is colored by a pure, child's joy at discovering the world for the first time. It's still a terrible world, a dangerous one, war-torn, full of refugees, paranoia, and death, but Nona finds so many small things to delight over. Petting dogs, making friends, being a teacher's assistant, swimming in the ocean, and the friends who look after her and taught her everything she knows in the six months she has been alive. This book didn't confuse me as much as Harrow, though I was left with many big questions about where the series is going at the end, I felt like the reveals were more evenly distributed throughout the story instead of all being stacked into the last 25%. This series is so weird, so convoluted, and mysterious, and I am having such a good time buddy-reading it along with a bunch of friends. I expressed this elsewhere, but I have not been so excited for the release of the middle volume of a series like this since the HP books were coming out. I preordered this book, a hardback, picked it up on release day, and read almost a 1/3 of it the same day it came out! I can't wait to see what's coming in the fourth book. I am so curious how Muir will land this skeleton-encrusted plane.

[oddygaul]

NieR Replicant

Creative, interesting, and deeply flawed. Comparing it to Automata, (which I’ll be doing a lot, as it’s kind of hard to avoid) it hits some higher highs, but when it stumbles, it really falls.

First off, this game has one of my favorite party dynamics of all time, and it’s backed up by stellar performances from the entire voice cast. Weiss and Kaine’s constant profanity-filled bickering, blanketed by the sweet layer of naivety Emil provides, lends such a bespoke vibe to this game. While the secondary NPCs are packed with tropes, the main party are all so distinct and weird in a way that sets Replicant apart from any other JRPG I’ve played. Also, this game’s genre-bending and perspective shifts fucking rule. From the spooky Resident Evil mansion, to the fully isometric underground lab, to the sections in Forest of Myth where the game turns into a choose-your-own-path text adventure for an hour, trapping you in a nightmarish flooding castle that exists only in the dreams of the dying, Replicant makes Automata’s mere camera angle switches feel quaint by comparison. Rather than flashy setpieces, Replicant feels like it actually experiments with form, and how player expectations shape the mood and tone.

Unfortunately, the rest of the gameplay and design drags the whole experience down. It’s a tough hand to be dealt to have your combat system compared to a Platinum game, no doubt - even if Automata is one of their shallower ones mechanically. Still, even in this improved remake, the combat feels rote by the second hour and never really evolves much beyond that (outside of the interesting Prohibited Actions section in Facade, which, due to the game’s structure, you’ll do once in the first leg of the game and never again). If we’re being honest, the fucked up part is that the combat isn’t even the main gameplay mechanic, by time spent - that dubious honor goes to repeatedly running back and forth across flat plains from location to location. Online, people in the fandom bond over the fact that by ending D, nearly every player will have naturally developed a racing line to get to Popola’s library in the most efficient manner possible, because you have to do it so often. Shit, by ending C I was looking up speedrun movement tech just to get from place to place faster. This is not good. If nearly every player of your story-focused narrative RPG starts essentially speedrunning the game before they’ve even completed it, you have a design problem.

The multiple endings / routes system is the roughest comparison to Automata; seeing how they’re handled in Replicant after playing the sequel, it’s hard to see the original NieR as anything but a rough draft. While Automata only has Route B repeat the same story beats before moving on to original content (and with much more differentiated gameplay than Replicant’s route B at that), Replicant forces you to replay the second half of the game three full times just to get different cutscenes at the end - and then to see Ending E you do a few more hours in a fresh save file. I understand the severe budget and time restrictions that were in place for the making of this game. Still, the sheer amount of times you must repeat the same dull actions to get what is, by all accounts, the real ending to the game does it a real disservice. It’s not just an issue of patience; the simple fact is, each successive ending hits a lot less hard when you’ve spent the last 3 hours skipping past cutscenes to get there instead of experiencing the story. Character moments that were devastating the first time lose their luster after a third viewing, so by the time I saw Ending C, for example, I felt detached and removed from the story and cast rather than immersed and ready for further developments.

Plus, to be honest, the endings beyond B didn’t even feel worth the effort to me. Ending B, similar to Automata’s, is largely about re-contextualizing the story, showing the other point of view, and painting Nier’s actions with a different brush - and it works. This is where the unofficial NieR tagline really hits home: you don’t have to be insane to kill someone, you just have to think you’re right. By the conclusion of ending B, you more or less understand all sides of the narrative, everyone’s motivations have become fully grey, and you’re left with the feeling that there’s no one to root for and no conceivable way that tragedy could have been averted. C & D, on the other hand, are largely focused on resolving Nier and Kaine’s arcs and giving them a happy ending. While route E has portions that are focused on fleshing out the world (and, for once, fresh, exciting new gameplay scenarios which I am livid that you’re unable to return to), its focus is still largely on the resolution of Nier and Kaine’s relationship. I personally wasn’t ever really sold on any sort of romance between the two, so C, D and E all kinda whiffed for me.

I would’ve much preferred additional content to give context to the story and world; for how much depth there is to the lore and worldbuilding of NieR's setting, shockingly little of it is shared in the actual game… if you want to really understand what a gestalt, replicant, or grimoire is, get ready to spend your time in wikis and forums reading transcripts of Japan-only drama CDs. Hell, even Automata tells you more about the backstory of the replicants than Replicant itself does.

Incidentally, having fully played through the game this time, I’m now wholeheartedly in the Brother Nier camp. My first experience of the original NieR was watching a Papa Nier (or as they called him, Dogface Nier) playthrough; at the time, it was hard to imagine a younger character working in the role, as the father-daughter bond seemed to provide such a strong impetus for the lead’s unwavering determination to rescue Yonah. On a replay, it’s clear that the most important themes of the game, especially as they relate to the main character, are radicalization, othering, and dehumanization… and those themes work incomparably better with Brother Nier. I would argue the timeskip and its effects on Nier are the single most important part of the character’s arc; the contrast between the boyish, JRPG-ass, fight for my friends 16-year-old Nier of Part 1 and the unrelenting, bloodlust-filled simmering hatred of Part 2 Nier is striking, and that transition simply doesn’t make sense with Papa Nier.

also Brother Nier has thigh highs, so.

I shouldn’t even need to say the music slaps, but of course it does. Kaine / Salvation has been stuck in my head for two weeks

[adevotedappraisal]

Kendrick Lamar discography review

Section.80 (2011)

***1/2

An assured and confident debut, the album shines when it's at its most focused. Highlights include "Ronald Reagan Era," which sets up the chaos and violent energy he was brought up in, both beat-wise and lyrically, and "HiiPower," an anthem that challenges you to rise above your conditions and "build your own pyramids." In between though, there are sleepy experiments like "Chapter Six," which sounds like an Outkast throwaway, the subdued observations of "Poe Mans Dreams" and "Hol Up," which is more peppy fun than substantial. Still, Section.80 is remembered by its heights and the potential of the young rapper buzzing around the verses of these songs about Compton, the main context of his later albums.

Key tracks: HiiiPower; Ronald Reagan Era; Ab Souls Outro

Good Kid MAAD City (2012)

*****

This album remained indelible and unique throughout this decade because, like the Notorious BIGs Ready To Die (1995), it is a storytelling album where the pieces are just as equal as the sum of the story. The peacock singalong of "Backstreet Freestyle," the dreamy hymnal of "Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe" and one of his best singles, "Poetic Justice" with Drake, are all classics that transcend the coming-of-age story. In album highlight "Sing For Me, I'm Dying of Thirst," the lyrics are raw, emotional, centered on death and spiritual redemption, the beats are mournful and grumbling, while reel to reel tape flickers throughout the epic, rendering the song, the story, and the film it's painting in our mind perfect and balanced.

Key tracks: Backstreet Freestyle; Poetic Justice; Sing For Me, I'm Dying of Thirst

To Pimp a Butterfly (2015)

*****

Dense with ideas and textures, this 2015 set is steeped in Jazz saxophone squalling across the songs, with thick basslines anchoring the majority of the songs, and harmonies swooping and swaying every now and then. "King Kunta" shakes its butt back and forth, "Mortal Man" ruminates like a cloud, while "These Walls" does both at the same time. Obsessed with blackness in all forms, from Pac to Mandela to the homeless man on the curb, Kendrick unveils these characters with new flows and voices, while the crew of producers make it "sloppy, like a Chevy in quicksand," creating something unique, warm and proud in the process. Widely considered a classic rap album of the decade.

Key tracks: Wesley's Theory; Mortal Man; Alright; The Blacker the Berry

untitled unmastered (2016)

***1/2

A collection of leftovers from the To Pimp a Butterfly era has it's own singular charm, dressed in Pimp's sophistication of Jazz-rap squall without all the stuffy importance. "Untitled 2" is a moody seance, Kendrick rapping images of divination over a brooding trap crawl, and "Untitled 5" is the closest to the Jazz-rap sound of Pimp, with a cool verse by labelmate Jay Rock, the beat littered with piano and saxophone runs. Untitled's lack of a unifying high-minded concept is its strongest feature, it's Kendrick without some of the overwrought themes that stiffen some of his later albums, "you be in your feelings I be in my bag you bitches," he crows on "Untitled 7." What this means is no towering classic song on the set, even as it satisfies as a whole.

Key tracks: Untitled 7; Untitled 2; Untitled 5

DAMN. (2017)

****

A far more conventional album than the Jazz-infused To Pimp a Butterfly, the textures are laced together and more palatable here, with the hermetic groove of "FEEL" followed by the shiny confessional thump of "LOYALTY" and so forth. Kendrick is at the top of his form, dealing with rivals on "HUMBLE," recreating the pot-boiling terror of a belt-wielding mother on "FEAR," and conjuring a tale across states, family and time frames, co-starring a gun and a chicken shop, on closer "DUCKWORTH." A unique grower of an album that comes off as his It Was Written, a follow-up to a classic too chart-minded for it's own good.

Key tracks: DUCKWORTH; XXX; DNA

Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers (2022)

****

A fascinating and immersive look at a contemplated life-in-progress, accomplished in a raw yet sophisticated turn, bringing to mind Jay Zs 444 from 2017 and Marvin Gaye's 1978 divorce album Here, My Dear. These confessionals, while eye-opening, can slow down the momentum of the double album at points, like with the lethargic "Mother I Sober" and "Rich Interlude." When this balance between music and message is just right, you get the kinetic, descriptive "United in Grief" and the restless brilliance of "Count Me Out," two of the best songs the Compton, California native has written.

Key tracks: Count Me Out; Worldwide Steppers; United in Grief

[jamie-woodhouse-film-blog]

FN2 Screenplay Research

This is a collection of research/inspiration I took while writing the screenplay so I could best understand the characters and communicate the tone I was going for to the rest of my group.

Music:

Playlist of musical influences on both story/character and the film's soundscape  - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3kUlMRZdiv0DgFZACO1XRz?si=43d3cbd0f3144e9e

Lingua Ignota - The woman behind Lingua Ignota, Kristen Hayter, has been through many abusive and toxic relationships, one of the main defining themes of her music so far. Her music has helped me to deeply understand the emotional impact a relationship like that has on a person and has hopefully aided me in writing something true to the experiences of both her and all those who have gone through something similar. The music itself has helped me to deeper understand the emotional aspect but she also released a statement detailing an emotionally and physically abusive relationship with another musician which furthered my understanding of what it would be like to be in that situation. (Statement link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RashVW63u0JVl2WhjeUTo3nrnPgh4_sQpKF2j-6_iy0/edit) Outside of the lyrics and background of the artist, I found the musical elements to be a good reference point for the soundscape of the film. She uses a lot of distortion and sampled sound effects to create an eerie and disorienting atmosphere. (Reference song https://youtu.be/QFlb38iTUiM)

Joanna Newsom -  Monkey and Bear (https://youtu.be/cV6-aJlswCs) This song uses the two titular characters to explore a one-sided relationship with a manipulative partner. It is told from the perspective of Bear and details how trapped and taken advantage of she feels in this relationship and how she eventually escapes from it. Bear is literally starved or food during this relationship and for the duration of the song Monkey keeps promising food, but it never comes. This metaphor influenced the specific section of the screenplay where their meals arrive, Alastair with a massive plate of food and Christina with only one singular pea (which he takes from her and eats as well.)

Painting:

The title comes from a painting by Andrew Wyeth which focuses on a woman lying in a field looking up towards a house on a hill. When I saw this painting and did some research behind it I was inspired. The woman in the painting was one of Wyth's neighbours, Christina, who could not walk so crawled everywhere. She lived on a farm with his brother and this setting inspired me to come up with a story of a controlling and abusive brother trapping her sister on this farm while she tries to live through it and eventually escape. After talking with my group I decided to adapt aspects of this idea to fit the project brief.

Films:

David Lynch - The dream-like quality of Lynch's films is my main influence on the screenplay. The nightmarish quality of his films is a good emotional core to communicate how the main character, Christina, is feeling. Specific scenes include the Mulholland Drive diner scene (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UozhOo0Dt4o), the Eraserhead family dinner scene (https://youtu.be/JamnCWXNsPs), and the whole of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, the horrific and sad events of Laura Palmer's final days has the perfect level of emotional depth using surrealism I wanted to achieve in my screenplay.

The Piano (dir. Jane Campion) - Ada's greatest joy in her life is playing the piano. Mute from birth, it is her way to express herself and escape the men who try to control her life. These men, however, just end up using this one joy in her life to manipulate her for power or personal pleasure. This idea partially inspired the idea that Christina would play bass but the person in her past relationship wouldn't let her while they were together.

Phantom Thread (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson) -  Food is a big part of Phantom Thread, breakfast and dinner scenes run through the whole film. Specifically, I was looking at the scene in which Alma cooks for Woodcock and an argument ensues. (https://youtu.be/fn5dXUu_qxM) 

[frowzyfeathers]

Roze Dreamer

This is one of my main horse ocs. She's one of the first pony characters I created back in the day on general-zoi's pony creators on deviantArt. Her design has changed massively from when I first made her, but this is her most current one.

above is a bust headshot I drew of her waving hello

Full Name:

Roze Dreamer (rose dree-Mur)

Nickname(s)/Aka:

Dreamer, Rozey(rosey), Randa-roze(rANDuh-rose), Roze(rose)

Age:

22 years

Gender:

Female

Pronouns:

She/Her; They/Them

Species/Type of Creature/Race:

Pony/Pegasus (without wings)

Height:

3' 8" or 107cm (just under average mare size)

Skin Tone/Fur Color:

Medium azure blue with bright light blue markings

Hair Length:

Slightly longer than shoulder length

Hair Style:

Mostly to the left side; Small part of hair is pulled aside to right side; Usually down, soft and straight, full of dead-ends; She sometimes has it worn back in a ponytail if she's too annoyed with it getting in her face all the time.

Hair Color:

[Left side] Milk chocolate brown (with a natural red-ish tint in the sunlight) and a washed-out used-to-be red (now salmon) strip of dyed hair. [Right side] Stripes of dyed pastel pink, purple, and blue hair, all in one small section

Eye Color:

Light lavender/Pastel purple/Light purple (Pupils are almost-black purple)

Usually carries:

Dark turquoise colored satchels/saddle bags; mechanical pencils, half lined half unlined notebook,

Usual attire:

None usually; sometimes wears a black hoodie or scarf, with an optional grey beanie

Cutiemark:

A purple rose with the green stem, lined with small thorns, twirled in a loop and the end pointed down, cut to form an inkwell pen tip, dripping rainbow-shimmer deep purple ink. The leaf, attached to the outer loop, is half on fire with a yellow-orange-red fading flame. A small white/very light blue cloud partly covers the front of the rose.

Personality/Backstory:

A very shy, mostly kind, easy-going horse who's considered a bit of a silly weirdo at times. She's not one to talk a whole lot around creatures that are strangers to her, but she still wants to/likes to socialize with others. Most of the time, she comes off as awkward, usually waiting for the right moment to speak up and not make too much of a fool of herself. She took the phrase "don't speak until you're spoken to" very literally at a young age, mainly out of fear that others would dislike her or wouldn't care what she had to say anyway. Not being really exposed to many social situations as a filly led to her current struggle of interacting with others. She usually was and still is the shoulder to cry on, always willing to listen to others and console them. She doesn't mind doing such, as long as they are genuine and aren't tricking and trapping her in situations.

She does tend to get stuck in her head A LOT of the time. Sometimes it's to a debilitating point of not wanting to get out of bed or do much. Usually, art is her outlet for such, where she can draw or scribble whatever she feels the need to.

Roze loves doing artsy things, like clay sculpting, pencil and paper sketching, acrylic painting, and digital art on her laptop with her drawing tablet. It's mainly horses and cartoony animals and creatures either from her imagination or shows she watches. She loves to sit around and watch nature do its thing. Like sitting outside and watching the clouds drift by, finding interest in swaying trees as the cool breeze shakes some leaves down, hyper-focusing on a jumping spider for 4 hours straight to watch it interact with a small cricket, looking up in awe at bigger birds flying through the sky, stuff of the sort.

Missing wings:

Roze cut off her own wings when she was 16, thinking and feeling like life wasn't worth living anymore. The story behind such deals with her natural habit of getting stuck in her own head, usually with negative thinking and assumptions that aren't 100% true. The reason why deals more from her past trauma and her not having any outlets for her emotions and being too scared and hopeless to ask for help. She has since regretted that decision heavily and is trying to have a more positive outlook on life, as some things causing her distress are lessening. Gaining motivation to try and find ways she can fly on her own again is usually difficult for her. Motivation is growing as she tries to look more on the positive sides to her life now. Thick weather-proof patches are stitched over the area where her wings would be.

Hobbies:

Drawing

Vibing to music

Playing video games

Watching nature

Sleeping/napping

Jumping spider keeping

Likes:

Hugs (both giving and receiving)

Pineapple on pizza

Plushies/soft stuffed animals

Miniatures (figurines, dioramas, items, etc-)

Mythical creatures/legends

Caring for/being around animals

Favorite animals are big cats, small cats, butterflies, ferrets, jumping spiders, giraffes, snakes, sugar gliders, hedgehogs, and many others-

Talents:

Artistic creativity/ability to draw

(still discovering what she's good at)

Dislikes:

Bugs flying/leaping towards her

Large crowds of unknown strangers

Embarrassing social situations

Talking about her wings situation

Weaknesses:

Very small and cute things

Soft fluffy things (will try to pet/snuggle it)

Sudden loud noises

Fears:

Being trapped/submerged under water

Being yelled at randomly

Upsetting others by accident

Being left alone by creatures she trusts

Habits:

Procrastinating until last minute

Shaking her back right hoof while sitting

Sticking her tongue out while focusing on something

Daydreaming/spacing out

Slight twitching when highly anxious

Pets:

None

Favorite color(s):

Purple

Red/maroon

Blue

Pink

Crush/Lover:

Yes, she's taken.

Sexuality:

Pansexual

Other:

420-friendly (marijuana user); Fall is her favorite season, Spring is second;

^ Roze's main reference sheet

^ Roze Dreamer's PonyTown design

[brawltogethernow]

@mirrorfalls​ submitted: Came across this while searching for James Bond’s scrambled-eggs recipe (long story). Your thoughts?

~~

But did you find James Bond’s scrambled eggs recipe?

In this article, Scocca laments his inability to find accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable to read with his young son, while also demonstrating a mysterious aversion to looking at DC and Marvel’s lines of comics for children, which is where the accessible, lighthearted superhero comics suitable for reading with young children are. He wants his elementary schooler to be able to safely have the run of all superhero media so he doesn’t have to touch the yucky baby books.

This is not an industry-wide crisis. This is just one dude who got paid to write an article where he accidentally exposed one of his personal hangups.

The child headed toward the trade paperbacks of Marvel and D.C. superhero titles on the side wall […] a few steps in front of me. […] Is he with you? a clerk asked me. I said he was. You know, the clerk said, we have a kids’ section. The clerk gestured backward, at a few shelves near the entrance. I said, Thanks, we know and tried throwing in a little shrug, as the kid kept going.

You can’t just turn a seven-year-old child loose in a comic-book store to look at the superhero comic books. […] My seven-year-old really wanted to see that last Avengers movie […] that is, he wished it were a movie he could see, but he understood that it was, instead, a movie designed to scare and sadden him—a movie actively hostile to people like him.

They have a children’s section. Because comics are a medium suitable for stories for everybody, and they are sold in comic book shops, which have sections, like bookstores. You can use this organization to find books that you know in advance are suitable for children. What goes in that category is determined by industry professionals. This area will be bigger the bigger the shop is. These comics are not lower quality that titles from the main lines. They are actually slightly better-written on average.

Your local comic book shop has considerately wrapped Empowered in a plastic bag, so your child will not be drawn in by a colorful superhero and accidentally read a graphic scene. If you think your kid might find a memoir about internment camps upsetting, it is your job to notice them picking up They Called Us Enemy and read the blurb on the back before you let them have it. This comic adults are meant to read is in a comic book shop because that is where comics are sold. Not every public place is supposed to be Disneyland.

Movies have ratings systems. If you do not want your child to watch a PG-13 movie, you will find that most superhero cartoons are for children. They are about the same characters. Some are quite good! I really enjoyed Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. Your child may like Avengers Assemble. At least I think that’s right. I’m always mixing those titles around.

This is a deeply weird bias for Scocca to casually demonstrate, because he identifies in the article that real childishness is striving for empty maturity.

He compares an old comic,

[…]a 1966 Spider-Man comic in which Spider-Man meets, fights, and defeats the Rhino; participates in a running argument between John Jameson and J. Jonah Jameson about his heroism; buys a motorcycle; breaks up with his first girlfriend, Betty Brant; flirts with Gwen Stacy; and reluctantly agrees to let Aunt May take him to meet her friend Mrs. Watson’s niece, Mary Jane.

and a new comic,

[…]a 21st century comic book in which Thor, brooding in a Katrina-destroyed New Orleans, beats up Iron Man. He also yells at Iron Man a lot about some incomprehensibly convoluted set of grievances, including involuntary cloning, that he believes Iron Man perpetrated against him while he was dead(?), and then summons some other Norse god from the beyond somehow for reasons having something to do with real estate. I think. Where the 1966 comic is zippy and fun and complete, the whole contemporary one is muddled and lugubrious and seems to constitute a tiny piece of a seemingly endless plot arc—simultaneously apocalyptic and inert.

and concludes that the edgier comic is actually less mature. This is true. (This is not news about mediocre comics.)

It also has nothing to do with either comic being child-friendly, the article’s nominal thesis, except in the sense that ASM #41 (yes, I eyeballed that from that summary, yes I am just showing off now) is better written, making it more everyone-friendly. It also has practically more space dedicated to word balloons than art and is about a college student juggling girl problems and a part-time job with a tyrannical boss. But the immature one, as Scocca points out, is dour.

These are both teenagery issues, separated only by quality. It’s true that lots of new comics published by the big 2 are bad in the specific way Scocca describes here, taking themselves too seriously and hauled down by associated stories instead of buoyed by them. Some are not! Some titles from these companies’ main continuities are zippy, contained, and child friendly. Give your child The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Or if you like vintage comics so much better, why don’t you…buy some?

The books on the kid’s rack are good and fun and totally suitable for parents to read with their children without wanting to scoop their eyeballs out. Scocca cites the Batman ‘66 comics as the brightly colored, tightly written all ages solution to his problem about sharing superhero stories with his son. My local comic shop stores this title in the kid’s section. I am glad that Scocca’s does not, as he seems to have a peculiar aversion to looking for comics to read with his son there.

Scocca cites Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse as a superhero movie he could watch with his kids. (I was surprised when this line made it sound like he has several. I don’t want to assume the other one isn’t in this article because they’re a girl, but I very much am assuming that.) Great! Go to the kid’s section and look for Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man. It’s a fun, zippy title directly inspired by ITSV where Miles, Gwen, and Peter superhero together. It’s much more tightly written than most of the various Spider-Verse comics, which are ambitiously messy ubercrossovers. You may not want to give those to children because they include murder and so on, but also you just have the choice between the two as an adult reader deciding how much continuity you want to deal with. Adventures is one of the only titles I would buy on sight before corona. The kid comic rack is a reliable place to take a break from How Comics Get Sometimes regardless of how old you are.

This article makes me feel quarrelsome. Maybe it’s that it doesn’t seem like exploration of a single idea so much as a loosely grouped bundle of things to kvetch about. Maybe it’s that the experience of getting into superheroes that Scocca describes experiencing, projects his seven-year-old son will experience, and from which he extrapolates a metaphorical microcosm of the history of the genre is completely alien to me.

Comic books [and] comic-book movies—are […] trapped in their imagined audience’s own awful passage from childhood to adolescence. A seven-year-old has a clean […] appreciation of superheroes. They like hero comics because the comics have heroes: bold, strong, vividly colored good guys to fight off the bad guys and make the world safe.

But seven-year-olds stop being seven. […] They become 13-year-olds, defensively trying to learn how to develop tastes about tastes.

The 13-year-old wants many things from comics, but the overarching one is that they want to prove that they’re not some seven-year-old baby anymore. They want gloomy heroes, miserable heroes, heroes who would make a seven-year-old feel bad. (Also boobs. They want boobs.)

Not because of the boobs line, although that does illicit an eyeroll that this gloomy thinkpiece is fretting over preserving the superhero experience of little boys who resemble the little boy the writer was while casually dismissing everyone else. I was one of those unlikable little seven-year-olds with a college reading level and the impression that maintaining it was the crux of my worth. I only read Books - distinguished media you could club someone with. I have a formative memory of pausing, enraptured, in front of a poster for Spider-Man 3, preparing to say that it looked pretty cool, and being beaten to the punch by my mother making a disparaging comment about how the movie was trash. It wasn’t out yet, but it was a superhero movie. That meant it was for loud, brainless children.

That was the total of my childhood experience with superheroes, excluding being the unwilling audience to incessant renditions of “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” that left me wondering why in god’s name Batman’s sidekick was named Robin. I certainly never visited a comic book shop. I got into TvTropes, which got me into webcomics, which got me following David Willis, who got me into Ask Chris at ComicsAlliance, which led to me rewarding myself for studying like a demon for the AP tests with three volumes of Waid’s Daredevil, pitched as a return to the character being colorful and swashbuckling. I was seven…teen.

This is of the same thread as Scocca’s point that immaturity is running from childish things. It leaves me baffled that he doesn’t follow that maturity is embracing them.

I will disclose here that while I think it was dumb I had to overcome my upbringing’s deeply embedded shame associated with enjoying arbitrarily defined lowbrow media and children being childish, I think it’s fine that I was allowed largely unchecked access to technically age-inappropriate content. In my limited experience, content small children are too young for is also content they’re too young to understand, so it kind of just bounces off of them, and what actually ends up terrorizing them is unpredictable collages of impressions that strike out at them from content deemed perfectly child-friendly. I would not forbid a seven-year-old I was in charge of from seeing an MCU movie unless I had a reason to believe that specific child would not take it well. These are emotionally low-stakes bubblegum films. It will probably be easier to socialize with other kids if they have seen them.

But then, when I picture being in charge of a hypothetical child, I usually imagine this being the case because they are related to me, and the pupal stage in my family strongly resembles Wednesday Addams. ALL children love death and violence, though, right?? This isn’t a joke point. I know it looks like a joke point.

The MCU thing seems especially weird in light of the article’s particular focus on Spider-Man, which is the kiddie line of the MCU, even if they refused to waver from their usual formula enough to get a lower rating. Though I am more inclined to describe it as “preying on the young” than “child-friendly”.

(MCU movies are increasingly dubious propaganda, but I would not judge them in front of a child who wanted to watch them for that reason, just in case this led to them partaking of them without me the second they were old enough to and then they grew up to run a blog about them while our relationship suffered because they didn’t feel like it was safe to talk to me about their interests…Mom.)

I tried to overcome the philosophy of letting anyone read anything while compiling this handful of mostly-newish superhero recs for the road that anyone can read. (Handily, I have been in spitting distance of being hired as a comic shop clerk enough to have thought about it before):

For actual children:

Marvel Adventures Spider-Man (the new one is reminiscent of ITSV, the old one is more like 616) any DC/Archie crossover, Archie’s Superteens The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (for bookish children who think they’re too good for comics and adults afraid of the kid’s section) Teen Titans Go (even if you hate the show) Superman Smashes the Klan

For teens:

Ms. Marvel Young Avengers (volume 2) Unbelievable Gwenpool Batman: Gotham Adventures Teen Titans Go (the tie-in comic based off the old show was also called this)

Here are a bunch of relevant C. S. Lewis quotes.

[chaoticdean]

Supernatural and the topic of found family — family don’t end in blood… or does it?

I know I’ve talked a great deal about the way the complete erasure of both Cas and Eileen from the two final episodes of SPN made my blood boil, but after careful consideration and a lot of talking with several very clever people (you know who you are), I think what hurt me the most on top of it all is the way Supernatural decided to essentially throw away an entire section of what made the show what it was for the best part of the last decade and a half: the topic of found family, and how they’ve carefully crafted so many important side characters and relationships only to throw them all away for the sake of having one last episode essentially disconnected from the rest of the story. 

[Because I’ve talked about in great length over the course of the past week and a half, and although there are undoubtedly more issues with Supernatural’s series finale than just this (ie: the Destiel treatment and the queer erasure, along with the complete erasure of Eileen, the only disabled character this show has ever known), I’m going to concentrate solely on the treatment of found family, and why its erasure from the finale storyline is deeply upsetting on top of being utterly inexplicable. If you want to read an incredible article about this, I’d redirect you to @chill-legilimens article’s, The Trauma of Silence]

When Supernatural started airing in 2005, the show essentially focused on Sam and Dean and their relationship, with a dash of John Winchester and mending the broken pieces between a father and his sons into the mix. The first side character that gets introduced to the audience as some sort of surrogate father to both Winchesters is Bobby (1x22, Devil’s Trap), and he quickly became a fan favorite to the fandom. Interestingly enough, Bobby is also the one who comes up with the “Family don’t end with blood” line (if I’m not mistaken, the first time it’s said on the show is during 3x16, No Rest for the Wicked). Once this line gets said, it quickly became more than just a slogan within the fandom, and it’s often referenced as a motto for the show as well (Dean even uses it during his talk with Crowley in season 10 to explain what family means).

Over the years, so many characters got introduced and became fan favorites (off the top of my head, I can come up with half a dozen already) and have grown within the show, to the point where they’re introduced to the audience as some sort of found family to both Dean and Sam. The boys get invited to Jody Mills’ and her wayward daughter’s house for dinner, spend what can only be qualified as a slumber party watching Game of Thrones with Charlie Bradbury in the bunker, keep running around and bickering with Crowley, spends time in the bunker with Eileen (the margaritas and Sam and Eileen being hungover the morning after in the bunker’s kitchen lives rent-free in my head). Even the Ghostfacers keep popping in almost every season for a decade. The audience gets to learn who these characters are and connect with them on several levels, most of them also becoming fan favorites over time.

But if I had to pick only one side character to make a point, Castiel is undoubtedly the one that comes to mind first.

When Misha Collins came along during season 4, he was only supposed to be in for a couple of episodes and be done with it. But because of his masterful performance (and because the character of Anna, who gets introduced around the same time as Castiel, doesn’t seem to work as well as the writers thought it would), Misha stayed along for the whole ride, and ended his run on Supernatural 12 years and 144 episodes later, with a character that is so beloved by the fandom that it elevated him to the rank of third lead. Castiel is not only an angel of the Lord, he’s also Sam and Dean’s best friend who would do anything to protect them (and, well, has done so, multiple times). He’s grown within the show to the point where the audience directly refers to him as being one of the family, even though he’s not blood, because “Family don’t end with blood” after all.

Another example that is particularly telling over the course of the last couple of seasons is the treatment of Jack’s character, who’s quickly adopted by the boys and referred to as “their kid”, the three of them acting like surrogate dads even though in the end, Jack is Lucifer’s son. Once again, the show makes a point of showing the audience that although Jack is not related to Sam and Dean in any way (I’m guessing since Lucifer is basically Castiel’s brother, he is somewhat related to Cas, but since I don’t have a degree in angel DNA, I can’t 100% be sure), he’s still family, he still matters.

The story basically tells the audience that even though you might not have a blood-related family, that doesn’t prevent you to find people along your life’s journey that becomes intrinsically connected to your story, both on a deeply emotional and practical level. It tells you that you’re not required to have a blood family to be someone’s kid, or sister, or brother. It tells you that blood doesn’t define who you choose to share your life with, and most importantly, it tells you that you’re allowed to choose.

So why on Earth did anyone think that ending Supernatural’s 15-year run with an episode that essentially showcases Sam and Dean and sidelines the wide majority of the family they found along the way (with the exception of OG Bobby showing up in Heaven) was a good idea?

Don’t get me wrong, I love Bobby, I really do… But what was the excuse for not having either Misha back (the literal third lead of the show, who confessed to being in love with Dean, the second lead of the show, two episodes prior), or Alex (Jack being one of the main focus of the past two seasons at least)? I get that Covid made all of this difficult, but you can’t tell me you’ve been able to bring back Mark Pellegrino’s Lucifer for a two minutes and a half cameo in 15x19, but not Misha fucking Collins to end his character’s arc (and Dean’s, who’s arc is deeply wired with Castiel’s) after 12 years. 

I’m gonna say it again, because I feel like it’s been used as an excuse for everything ever since the finale aired: Covid cannot be the sole excuse for everything. It cannot account for the absence of literally EVERYONE around the Winchesters.

At that point, I should probably add that although I was incredible baffled by the one-off mention of Cas (well, two, if you count Sam saying he misses him and Dean deflecting during the Pie Fest at the beginning of the episode), what probably set me off the most is the part of Dean’s death speech where he says “when it all came down to it, it was always you and me, it’s always been you and me”. 

I’m sorry Dean, you know I love you to pieces, but what the actual fuck was that? What does it even mean? That single line essentially strips away any kind of meaningful contribution of any side characters… Including Castiel “always happy to bleed for the Winchesters”’s, and Jack’s who quite literally saved the whole world ONE EPISODE PRIOR.

Not to mention that the fact we don’t get to see Cas again leave Dean’s entire character’s arc incomplete. What was the point of season 15, which focused so deeply on Dean and Cas’ relationship, if in the end the entire character’s arc gets dropped?

So what’s the message being sent here? 

“Found family was a myth, it’s always been sorely about the Winchesters”? 

“Ha! Tricked ya!”?

Why did Supernatural, after a decade and a half spent consolidating the contribution of side characters, decided to essentially throw it all away?

Why did Supernatural, after a decade spent crafting meaningful relationships within the show, decided to light it all up on fire and end its run with an episode that basically tells the audience that none of it really mattered, it’s always been sorely about Dean and Sam.

I would’ve been fine with a Sam and Dean episode if Castiel had more than a one-off mention, if they didn’t give Sam a blurry wife, if Dean had the funeral he deserved (with a rock band, whisky, and all the fellow hunters and family he found along the way), if Sam didn’t spend the rest of his life mourning his brother. I would’ve been fine with only getting Jim Beaver on screen (because Covid) if we had been given something more than just Dean driving for his last 5 minutes on screen. It would have been FINE, if Supernatural hadn’t essentially forgotten about what made Supernatural, well, Supernatural.

Long story short, I feel tricked. And I know a lot of you feel tricked too, because this isn’t what we’ve been fed for the past 15 years. Supernatural was a show about finding your way through life and death and horror and trauma, with help from people you found along the way who became linked to your story because you cared for each other. And Supernatural ended by telling us that found family didn’t really matter, that Dean was always going to die on a random hunt, that Sam could never be truly happy without his brother by his side. Talk about a downgrade, uh?

I don’t know why they decided to throw their entire legacy to the wind. Truth be told, I don’t think we’ll ever get to know. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to stay pissed about it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to ever be okay with my favorite show deciding to end its run with a finale episode so deeply disconnected from their 15-year story that it felt utterly shallow.

They said “Family don’t end with blood”… But after all of this, doesn’t it, though?

[hopeymchope]

Random Danganronpa S musings after having 24 hours to digest the announcement

— Get a load of that cover art. I’m sort of surprised that they spoil the existence of Toko’s other personality right there on the front, but I guess that’s a pretty early reveal in the very first game and it’s also heavily telegraphed in advance, so no biggie. The real question here is: WHY is Komaru so prominently shown when her starring role is the only game not included in the collection? I would fucking LOVE to later find out that we’re also getting Ultra Despair Girls in this set somehow, but I don’t think there’s any chance of that. And I seriously doubt she’s going to be integral to the events of Danganronpa S: USC. So what gives? Perhaps it’s just another way to mislead newcomers, like the prominence of Kaede and Hifumi. The entire selection of characters here is sort of curious and makes me wonder if this art already existed before now. I don’t believe I’ve previously seen it, though.

 — I wonder how they’re fusing the turn-based combat into the board game this time? Obviously there shouldn’t be some random “exams” that occur at the end of a board, because the story is no longer centered around completing years of school. So what’ll be the driver behind encountering enemies? Maybe they’ll be on random board spaces? 

— They showed us the screen where you can choose higher-level cards that represent more powerful versions of the game characters just like in Ultimate Talent Development Plan. But the main reason to use those rare-unlock options in UTDP was to get tougher characters for use in the Despair Dungeon. I’m not expecting a dungeon crawler to be included with this one, so what’s the purpose of the S-level cards and such? ........ Unless I really should expect dungeon crawling to be integrated into this somehow! I’m just spitballing now, but maybe we will progress through various boards, and some boards will represent dungeons/combat areas? 

— Of course I assume Junko is behind the invasion of Monokuma and his army of Mono-bots. I’m quite confident that this is going to be another AU where she has a whole new plot for driving despair just like she did in UTDP/Despair Dungeon. Perhaps the entire resort trip is part of her overarching plan. We’ve already seen Junko (on the title screen) and “Junkuro” (seen above) in the screenshots so far, too, so Mukuro is presumably acting as support for Junko’s plot once more. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Tsumugi is in on the plot again as well... even though I’ve long wanted to see a version of Tsumugi who isn’t just evil. I was actually disappointed when I unlocked the scene in UTDP that revealed she was still putting on a front to hide her true nature. 

— The prescence of “Junkuro” strongly implies that we won’t once AGAIN won’t get to see Mukuro as herself. :( That was one of the big disappointments of UTDP for me, although I realized at the time that UTDP was mostly made out of existing assets. However, now that they’re making a bunch of new sprites and CGs for Danganronpa S, it makes the idea of trapping Mukuro in her disguise just much harder to swallow... I hope I’m wrong and we can unlock some way to play as Mukuro as herself. UTDP at least gave us a retro sprite for her, but it doesn’t seem like it’d be that difficult to give her a proper sprite set.

— What can we glean about the gameplay from the above screenshot? What drove the player to wander into a dead end of the board? Will such dead ends potentially hide some special items, rare events, or secret pathways? Is the player’s choice to venture down there somehow connected to the “Mission” stated at the bottom? Are these “missions” going to be side objectives or the main requirements to progress? It’s also noteworthy that every image/video of the board we’ve been given shows the same section of the same board. Is there only going to be one massive board for each runthrough, or will we still see different board options/”courses”? I hope for the latter, but I could do without the Despair Course...

— Dude, I was shocked to see that Togami is ripped on the title screen. Still, I guess it’s believable enough that he’d take the time to sculpt his body as much as possible. I was much MORE shocked to see Kazuichi looking fucking CUT in the swimsuit scene. What the hell?! How many abs can you develop from mechanic work? Because I am assuming none. I guess he must work a lot of crunches into his days. 

— Remember the “Future Course” in UTDP? It took a ton of time to unlock it, but I loved that there was a way to bring in the Danganronpa 3 anime-only characters, even if it was just for simplistic retro-style sprite interactions. I wonder if we’ll see anything similar with those characters in this release? They already have the retro sprites, after all! So here’s hoping for more time with the Future Foundation crew. 

— Really digging the fact that you now unlock story/interaction scenes on a menu where you can rewatch them. That’s going to make the scenes I’ve experienced so much easier to track! I’d really like to see them provide some hints for any spaces on the menu that are unfilled, but I won’t hold my breath.

— The selection of characters featured in the Collector’s Edition art print is sort of random, isn’t it? When you take all three together, is there any commonality they share? This feels like the result of some Japanese fan poll that determined these to be the most beloved/marketable options or somesuch.

[turnaroundroundround]

Opera References in Musical Yuukoku no Moriarty Op. 2

Some thoughts of mine after re-watching Morimyu Op. 2, regarding Irene's arc A Scandal in British Empire, about all the opera references and some random thoughts that come to mind during this arc. Obviously there's a lot more to Morimyu Op. 2, for instance The Two M's and Mycroft's solo (which I often refer to as "the Mycroft Anthem" lol), the entire Baskerville arc, and the train arc, and so on. And there's a whole lot of other things I'd like to discuss about them as well, but maybe just save it for another time. I don't know if anyone has discussed these references before, and I am not entirely a pro in music either. All I have is some basic knowledge on opera and harmony, so these are just some personal impression that came to mind when I watched this arc, so please keep it in mind.

A SCANDAL IN BRITISH EMPIRE

Okay, so the biggest motivation for this post is, obviously, the music throughout the entire Scandal arc. It is heavily influenced by opera, partly because Irene herself is an opera singer, partly also because the masquerade ball itself is also a perfect stage for an opera to be shown. And the opera was not simply brought in to make the music sound good, but also utilising the plot of the opera itself to create more depth and color to the musical. About Opera during the 19th Century Some side notes. Opera has originated and developed from various different kinds of stage ever since the Greek and Romans. I'm not going into details but anyway, by the 19th Century, it's still somewhat of a luxury that is mostly meant for nobles and people with high status. There are millions of stories about nobles coming to the theatre only to enjoy the music and not the play itself, or not really watching anything but waiting to see their favourite opera singer. Like when the other things in the play are going on, they stay in there box or hang out with other nobles, playing cards and all, and when their favourite singer makes her debut, they come to the front of the box and watch her. Then they return to their games when she exits. All the luxuries. Opera is really something that is meant for nobles and those with nothing but time and money on their hand back then. And another thing is (with an image that I quickly searched on Google just now lol) back them before any stages there is always a pit for the orchestra to be in. They are just below the stage so that the music can still reach the audience as equally, but also low enough that they aren't in the way of the audience's view.

By the way, the role of the conductor and stage director back then was somewhat a blur (if I remember it correctly), as the music writer would very often himself direct the entire stage and become the conductor on the performance day. In case something goes wrong, such as actors need more time to adlib, then he knows how to direct the orchestra to play accordingly. It's quite a small detail, but in Op. 3 Liam also refers to himself (yes this is still about Yuumori lol) as the maestro, somewhat very similar to the role of the conductor himself. This reference, as we can see, shows Liam's role behind the scene conducting all the plots and instructions. It's quite a small detail I think, but also quite interesting

By the way, the leading singer, or Prima Donna (as they call Irene), are always sopranos. And the same goes for Irene Adler, all of her songs were written to highlight her soprano voice, like in 大作戦ーDaisakusen or her song with Ms. Hudson

An example from a song that I was reminded of when listening to Cecile!Irene. Of course there are many other songs we can talk about, this is just one of the examples.

Obviously, Irene's song aren't entirely like classical opera songs. They were all arranged to both highlight the opera feature, but also to suit the form of the musical and all the while showing Irene's elegant and gracious manners of a prima donna, and also showing her playful side especially during her duet with Sherlock.

YAMI NO OPERA - DON GIOVANNI BEHIND THE CURTAIN

To understand Don Giovanni references, it's essential to understand the story behind the original opera by Mozart. That being said, the actual plot of the story is quite long and contains so many details it's almost impossible to fit all of them into one post while also comparing them with the one in Morimyu, so this is a link to a more detailed synopsis of the opera. Or you can also read more on wiki. I'll just give some basic details that are referenced and discussed in this post. Overall impression: This opera revolves around a playboy that flirts with women, but lacking in loyalty and commitment to keep any of his promises to them. By the end of the play, after all the sin he has committed, Don Giovanni is engulfed in hell's fire, and punished for his sin. It is very much similar to the story in Morimyu, nobles relying on their wealth and status and have the freedom to do anything as they want, without having to worry about having to bear the consequence. Because of the difference in power and status, it is almost impossible to punish all of them, therefore having a need of a "demon" to punish them with powers that no human have - the role of Moriarty gang within the play.

In this arc, Liam is "directing" a play that is inspired by Don Giovanni. His audience is Irene Adler (and of course us who is watching the entire thing), and the main character is Lorinson who ends up being punished for his crime. Mozart's Don Giovanni is being performed on stage, but at the same time Liam's "Don Giovanni" happens, in the back stage. What we are watching as the main stage is actually the "back stage" of the real story.

In the original play, Don Giovanni was a playboy that flirts with many women. At the beginning of the play, he flirts with a woman called Donna Anna, and her father tried to defend his daughter. They got involved in a duel and Don Giovanni killed the man. Donna Anna mourns and wish to avenger her father.

In Morimyu, the story of Lord Lorinson (pardon me for not knowing both the translation of his title and his name) is added in spite of the original plot in the manga. As far as my Japanese comprehension goes, the story is that Lord Lorinson is also one that uses his status to abduct other women to his pleasure, and ends up treating them poorly.

At one point, a woman came to the Lord of Crime, saying that her daughter has been murdered by the noble and mourns her. She wishes for revenge, and Liam proceed to do so.

Don Giovanni - Act I Finale

During Moran and Louis' fight with Raymond(?), in the section behind the stage we can see the opera theatre with the Finale song going on. The ensemble is still singing as the fight goes on behind them.

In the Finale of Act 1 here, the section that was insert into Morimyu was rather short, and was meant for a dramatic effect than actually showing what's happening in the original opera anyway. But anyway, we can see that as the fight proceeds, the curtain behind also slowly closes, ending the first Act of the opera.

It's clearer here. We can see that as they are fighting there is an entire opera going on at the back. The fact that the ensemble has their back to the audience emphasises how everything we're seeing are all in the backstage, but at the same time it proceeds alongside with all the events in the "mainstage". It's quite a powerful image.

At one point in the opera, Don Giovanni attends a party where he met one of his previous lovers that he betrayed. Then there's some talking and such and more betrayal, and somehow he then decides that he would also flirt with his ex's maid.

There isn't much that I have to say with this reference in the play, only that it is actually Fred disguising as a maid for the purpose of carrying out the plan and scared the sh*t out of Lorinson lol

I couldn't catch all the details from their conversation, but apparently Fred did some kind of stand-in again as the victim who was murdered by Lorinson, also to provoke him and lead him into Liam's trap?

At the end of the opera, Don Giovanni was cornered by the 'devil', drowning him in the flames of hell. However before that happens, the women that Don Giovanni once flirted with (as well as Donna Anna whose father was murdered by Don Giovanni) gathered, chasing after Leporello - Don Giovanni's servant - who exposed him of his guilts and sins.

The song that the women sung in this scene is "Ah, dov'e il perfido?", and there is a very small section at the end of the song that was kind of re-arranged and added to Morimyu. In Morimyu, this is the scene when Lorinson is exposed of what he is done, after that being "punished" by the devil. There is also a scene in the play when Liam mentions 地獄の炎 - Jigoku no Hono (The Flames of Hell) which is a direct reference from the original Don Giovanni. In fact, what he has been telling Lorinson is the story of Don Giovanni and how he ends up being punished - only that when Lorinson realised that, it's already too late.

(A reference from the song in the original play, the section that is used in Morimyu is actually quite short, only starting from around 5:40 within the song in this video)

In Yami no Opera, the song is arranged with Liam's part of the melody above the entire harmony. So it is indeed a proper opera that "Liam" has based on re-arranged to carry out his plan.

While Don Giovanni is happening on stage, there is also another "Don Giovanni" being punished by the devil - Lorinson. We hear part of the original song from the ensemble in the background, and also Liam's version of the punishment along with Lorinson's struggle. And at the same time the ensemble does seem to be focusing on "Don Giovanni" - all of them looking towards Liam's and Lorinson's position. A really impressive scene.

And after that very short section, the play goes on, returning their focus back to Irene Adler and Albert's conversation. There is no "Flames of Hell" erupting in any ways except for Liam's really strong section of the Yami no Opera song. And there's no need for it, I think, as Lorinson has never been the real protagonist like Don Giovanni. Liam only made him a temporary "protagonist" and not solely for the purpose of exposing him, but only as a mean to show Irene the true identity of the Lord of Crime. So there is no point making it more dramatic than it already is.

So...

That's pretty much all that I have to say about Don Giovanni and opera's reference, I think?

Well another thing, maybe, is how much I love the instrumental arrangement for violin and piano in Morimyu. They don't have the privilege of having an entire orchestra, but instead they did as much as they could for the instruments so that they recreate the original opera vibe as well as they possibly can. And the result is, just, extraordinary.

Anyhow, I've heard many of my friends comparing the songs from Op. 2 and Op. 3, seeing that Op. 3 has more of a "flow" in between the songs as all of them were written with harmony such that they have a certain connection to each other.

Not that Op. 2 doesn't do the same thing. However the second Opus does feel more separated, I think, since the music in the 3 different arcs are much more different. For instance the Baskerville arc has a "hunting" vibe to it, describing Moriarty gang's plan to bring down the nobles' game of hurting children, while the final Scandal arc revolves around an opera singer and mostly happens within a masquerade ball. So there is a big difference between the scenes, and obviously a big difference in the music brought to them as well.

Aaaand, that's pretty much all the details I've picked up (and remembered lol) up to this point.

Anyway, I've been watching and re-watching all 3 Opus of Morimyu many times, each time firguring out something else that I haven't noticed before. So if I end up realising some other details within this arc, maybe I'll come back and add to this post.

Thank you for reading ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

Also, thank you @rikaaki for these beautiful gifs(☆▽☆)

[beetthereet]

an analysis on alice oseman’s writing in radio silence (only radio silence since i’ve yet to read any of her other books) because wow this human can wRITE:

(this will contain spoilers so don’t blame me if i did spoil you<3)

this will just be split up to sections because i have a lot to say and this is how i organize my thoughts best.

The way she writes first person P.O.V;

The entirety of ‘Radio Silence’ is written from the perspective of our main character, Fraces Janvier, speaking from a future stand. The entire story is written in a past tense from the perspective of an older Frances who knows what will end up happening, who knows everything.

From someone who enjoys writing, first person point of view is sO HARD TO WRITE. I was honestly mesmerized by the way Oseman wrote this book. Another thing about the writing is that the first-person point of view, truly made the story feel genuine and real. I don’t know what was Alice Oseman’s age while writing this book but it honestly feels like such a true experience of a 17-18 year old who goes a huge change in her life and doesn’t really know what to do with herself, and then finds something she’s passionate about. Truly passionate. It just really feels genuine and true and so I wanted to point it out.

The way the plot builds up;

I think, one of the main reasons Radio Silence is a comforting and fun book that many people enjoy reading _and _rereading, is because of the way the plot is built. Because the book is written in the point of view of Frances, in first person, she describes the plot of the book like she experienced it. It was getting to know someone from ‘saving his drunk ass in a pub’ to ‘this is my very close friend that I truly cherish and don’t want to lose’. And because of that, the entire feel to the plot up to when the universe city fandom figures out that Frances is Toulouse and through that, that Aled is the person behind the anonymous podcast, is so... organic in a way. 

The way this book is written truly makes you feel like you’re a little speck of dust in the air, looking down at these two absolute nerds slowly become so close. You have fun with them, you laugh with them, you get shocked with them, you feel with them. You feel with Frances throughout the book in its entirety. Feeling with these characters as they slowly build their friendship is what makes the big blow when tumblr (and the internet) find out Aled’s identity. An identity he wanted to keep secret. He needed to keep that secret. Because there he could be anyone he wanted. He didn’t need to think of what X, Y or Z would think about him after he said this or that. It was his space. And through Frances, we learn that. And we learn how much it matters to him. And like Frances, we want Aled to have this space. To have this bubble. 

And as the plot moves forward from that big blow of that tumblr post revealing who Radio is (aka, Aled), we feel with Frances and for her. Because after the action of some anonymous user on the internet, she lost her closest friend at the time. She lost a person she cared so much for. And that is emphasized so well when Aled snaps at Frances outside the pub. When he yells and shouts and says things until Raine takes Frances away. And we feel so bad, with Frances. Because Aled lost his bubble, Frances lost her friend and her safe space, and everyone lost something from the situation. 

This is brilliantly brought to light even more with the ‘Childhood Kisses’ episode, where we finally see Daniel talking. We see how bad and heartbroken he feels, and we feel so bad for him because he doesn’t deserve this. None of the main cast of characters did. 

And so, Alice Oseman made us feel for her characters. From Aled, to Frances, to Daniel, to Crays, to Raine. We feel for the characters because we care for them.

The stakes;

The stakes in Radio Silence are directly tied into my last point — the way that the plot was built up. Because, if we hadn’t seen Frances and Aled build their friendship like we did we would’ve never cared about how Aled snapped at Frances. We wouldn’t have had any connection to him, and I mean yeah, losing a friend is hard, but if we hadn’t seen that the personal level of empathy to both Frances and Aled would’ve been lacked in this situation.

This is also very well seen in both the time Aled was struggling to keep his identity a secret and the time Carol almost took Aled with her on the train from uni (at the very end). We know Aled and we know how important it is for him to 1) have universe city, 2) be able to keep universe city a secret from the world and his mom specifically, and 3) not go “home” with her because that’s dangerous for him. If we hadn’t seen Aled and Frances grow close (as I’ve mentioned before), these situations would have had no emotional affect on the reader because you wouldn’t have known Aled.

Basically Alice did an amazing job, I’m in awe<33

Alice Oseman will have you falling for each and every one of her plot twists;

In the entirety of the book Alice has planted multiple little ‘traps’ for you, the reader. These ‘traps’ are just pieces of information that are never confirmed to be true, but are assumed to be based on what we know from Frances and the story so far.

Examples; the whole ‘who is February Friday ordeal’, wtf is going on with Aled and Daniel’s relationship, what’s going to be Frances and Alex’s relationship status, whether Aled was going home or not, and so much more because she is good with this shit.

Using the correct tone to convey whatever she wants to, Alice Oseman managed to keep the reader at the edge of their seat, making them think “oh this is so obvious! I know this!” thinking they had figured it out when she is ten steps ahead of you the entire time. That’s such a smart way of keeping your readers interested and invested and she did it in a way that didn’t feel annoying or ‘ugh i didn’t get this right as well damn it’ but in a interesting and enticing way because the clues — and the solution — to the actual answer were and are right in front of you the whole time.

More on the tone of the whole book;

This book can pride itself on correct tone usage with its writing. Something I personally love to look for while looking at writing critically is the tone of the writing. Does the writing feel like this or that, specifically in dialogue or first person point of view. Does it actually feel like different characters speaking or thinking or narrating, if it’s one person, is the narrating consistent? And with radio silence I can say it just checked all of the boxes.

With every chapter I can feel the exact tone Fraces would say this in if this was spoken, I can understand exactly why it’s her speaking and when she’s speaking to her mother, or Aled, or Raine or Daniel I know who’s she’s talking to and why. There’s so much personality splattered through their words both while speaking (and in Fraces’s case) while narrating honestly it was so brilliantly done I was just having so much fun the entire time.

A little conclusion since I tend to ramble;

In her book, ‘Radio Silence’, Alice Oseman tackles the first person point of view as if it’s a piece of cake, builds the plot brilliantly in a way that makes you connect to the characters and feel like they’re just chatting and enjoying their time together while actually building a plot so nicely, and when it comes into play it’s so well executed, not out of the blue, just *chef’s kiss*.

Through the first part of her book, Alice creates stakes to further conflicts so well and so smoothly it’s honestly mesmerizing, and plants little traps, tricking you into thinking one thing without confirming it while the answer is right under your nose. It’s just so well done I’m gonna sob smh.

+ the tone usage of the entire book was superb.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed my ramble. Have a good day babes <3

[popurikat]

Trying to make sense of parts of Future (Mystery Skulls)

Since my last analysis went so well I thought I’d make this post as well, especially because Future really did confuse me and I know others might be lost as well; so lets discuss this together! It will be lengthy as I am basically spewing my thoughts out right on the videos immediate release date (there will be a read more option after my first thought to avoid long positng). Well first things first, I wanna address that I've been curious about what kind of spirit Arthur's arm could be (since I am not too well acquainted with any canon on its background part at least) and I think I have concluded that the closest thing to it could be is a Tenome; which is a Yochai that possesses a man's body and moves the eyes to the palms. "found lurking in cemeteries, hands outstretched, as if he has only recently lost his vision and is searching for something. Get close enough, and you’ll find out in quick succession that a) he’s not blind, but looking with eyes embedded in his hands, and b) what he’s looking for is a snack." (fyi, most of my mythos information is coming from Wiki just as a heads up)

And sure enough he found a great source for his hunger. Something he has been EYEING since the start. Which now leads me to my next points on the video...

At first watch I was convinced that each strand found on Mystery’s heart represented a singular soul bond, I thought that blue was for Vivi, Green was for the hand, pink for Lewis, purple for Shiro, Yellow for Lance, Orange for Arthur, and black and white were unknown. Which, didn’t settle right for me. SO I went in and re-watched the clip a couple more times and saw this:

Vivi’s (blue created after she got hurt) and Shiro’s (white created after she died) strands were connected to the strands located next to them. A start and an end. Mystery’s promise to Vivi to stay at her side for generations as he was spared upon prior defeat of Mushi. And then of course we have the promise of power and sustenance for Shrio as they held a symbiotic relationship for most of their lives that was only severed due to an interference. These double strands of fate are especially clearer in the scene with Shiro in Future. As the black strand gets clearer the more she gets injured or emotionally hurt, it eventually leads to the leak of the white strand on her death. Meaning; Black/white=Shiro; Purple/Pink=Lewis; Blue/Green: Vivi; and Orange/Yellow: Arthur. And why am I inclined to believe Lewis and Arthur are apart of Mystery’s heart? Well that's because those two were the only ones fully streaming before Vivi’s and Shiro’s appeared. We know that Arthur lost an arm to Mystery and discovered his identity (ergo losing most of his trust in him) insinuating both strands to arise early on of his color scheme, as well as with Lewis’ death occurring under the protection of Mystery when they were grouped and having his soul go restless/ in pain. It wouldn’t make sense to add family members or side characters not included in the mainline story to this grouping unless they would play an important role in the finale, which isn’t likely since we have only one more video left as Ben stated it was going to be a 5 video series. I am also inclined to believe each person has two strands because of Kitsune lore: “ Kitsune keep their promises and strive to repay any favor. Occasionally a kitsune attaches itself to a person or household. They follow their word of honor. They become self-destructive if they break a promise, and when someone else breaks a promise, they become deadly enemies.” Plus, It would make sense as to why in this short battle Mystery sprouted his last 3 tails when it came to Vivi and Shiro and how their connections affect his power. (more on this in a bit) But, furthermore; if anyone else notices, the Band-Aids on the heart are also remotely located on the sections of Vivi’s and Shiro’s strands specifically because for both, Mystery has vowed to protect them and has failed. 

Now then lets talk about a few things on Mystery’s ultimate form shall we? The final form of a Kitsune, its celestial form as shown here is called a Tenko. (yes I am aware of the Kumiho, but that is a fully evil, flesh eating, 9 tailed fox that specialize in illusions and well Mystery has never been portrayed as human). The Tenko makes even more sense when taken into consideration that Mystery’s third eye (typically a form of wisdom connected to overpowering the mortality of ones self) opens. So how was this done in such a short amount of time? “Kitsune do not accept aid from those who are not willing. they do not ask for help, and as such, most aid must come from another's initiative. Kitsune are emotional and very vengeful. Kitsune will lose their temper at the slightest provocation. Once someone has earned a kitsune's enmity, the kitsune will begin enacting revenge that can become quite extreme. On the other hand, those who have earned a kitsune's trust and loyalty will see a friendship that can last through many trials. Freedom is very important to the kitsune. They do not accept being forced into something they do not wish, and do not like being bound or trapped. Doing so weakens the kitsune.” Mystery as we know is very much controlled by his emotions, going head first into things constantly based on reaction and his inability to control his power under distress. His tails arose in the fight sequence every time he fulfilled his oath AND used 100% of his form/power. Therefore, his tails grew because he wasn’t holding back anymore, not his grievances, not his appearance, nor his hesitance in his evident distress of being bound to two entities that both required his aid.  My last note on these images comes from a tumblr user’s reverse audio clipping (https://nebulous-rain.tumblr.com/post/633555549749952512/ok-so-yknow-that-one-reversed-part-of-future). The rewind of the clip of Mystery’s transformation plays “When I’m With You”, which yes, cool a possible Easter egg to the next song! BUT what is this song about? Let me just bring up the first line of the song: “You got me hanging by a THREAD...I wish I could turn back time...I wish I could rewind life...” and before the chorus “I’m gonna make it right”. We know that this can refer to rectifying the wrongs of Lewis’ death, but more accurately to do so we need to defeat the evil inside this mutt that is pulling the strings of this whole fiasco. And this might just be the intro portion of the next mystery skulls mind you as we’ve also gotten many false starts with the previous two videos where hellbent used “every note” and future used “enemies” alongside the main song. BUT WE HAVE TWO YEARS ANYWAY, WHY BABBLE ON ABOUT THIS. LETS MOVE ON!

Hearts in this series have not been just for identifying the dead or for aesthetic purposes, they are the life force of each powerful legend. I am actually surprised to see Shiro have a heart as she started off as a creation from Mystery and therefore her lifeforce is just his blood and without it she is nothing. I am curious about her color pallet though, her heart is purple and pink. Lewis’ is gold/yellow with touches of orange. And Mystery’s is just red, but it has a mix of everyone’s essence within it to keep it tied and whole. Shiro’s could be colored this way in reference to Lewis’ aid to help find her creator; which would explain why Mystery surrounds himself by color as he required outside help and how Lewis’ heart is yellow in reference to how recently Arthur helped him remember his friends/hidden memories. One thing we have learned about hearts is that they can be broken repeatedly and can be ripped apart from the body, but they can be repaired too through resolution/hope. Lewis restored his heart in hellbent by using Vivi’s flower petals and finding hope that he will get revenge, only for his heart to be repaired again through Arthur’s touch. Shiro may have withered away, but her heart is essentially not broken, she’d need Mystery to restore it as it was flung into space (and that again relies on Mystery finding his sanity and finding it in himself to even bring her back). And as for Mystery himself, he’s gonna need the whole gang to reach out to him to extract the parasite within and restore balance. I really want to know more about the heart properties and how they give their users their powers as well Vivi is able to summon her strength through a material connection (bat) that function in its own way as the vessel a heart does since its connecting her to her ancestry.

NOW to finalize, I offer you two queries:

WHO IS ARTHURS HAND REACHING FOR!? I know it seems like Mystery, but that would be counter productive for the hand demon if he has Arthur interfering with his control. Is it still after Lewis as we’ve seen previous times where his arm acts up only in Lewis’ presence and when specifically other “magic” is at play? If so, is the goal to ward off Lewis and Vivi from defeating Mystery? Is Arthur gonna use the arm to find his own power as we’ve seen when he is able to momentarily cease control of it he kinda ruins anything electrical he touches and well, electricity is currently running rampant in there.

and lastly, I am really curious how touch sensitive hearts are, We know that even the smallest of brushes can detect memory/links to the person holding it (as seen with how Shiro managed to get soul flowers in hellbent), but the fact that Lewis was so in touch with the feeling of Arthur EVEN THOUGH ARTHUR GRABBED HIS HEART THROUGH HIS METAL HAND MIND YOU!, that he still managed to feel the disturbance instantly. So my question is, is the touch sensitivity reliant on how close someone is to someone? I would like to say yes cause when Shiro touched his heart he didn’t react instantly, he felt her rummaging his memories and was awoken, but he didn’t kick her butt by fully reforming until after she had long since stepped on his heart and then forced the memory of Mystery to arise. But yeah, its a nice little detail.

Either way, thanks for reading! Feel free to add on, comment, or even dm me about more Mystery Skulls information and theories! Love to hear them!